"Worth it for the White House to lose news cycles in 2010 if it means adding jobs by 2012?"

[Clio the Leo]

Something to chew on...

Can the White House win in 2012 by losing on the Bush tax cuts now?
By Ezra Klein

The compromise the White House is negotiating on the Bush tax cut is looking more and more like the White House's opening gambit in the 2012 campaign.

The White House has stopped negotiating for ideal -- or even acceptable -- tax policy and moved to negotiating stimulus policy. The tax cuts for income over $250,000 will pump about $100 billion into the economy over the next two years. It's not the most stimulative way to spend $100 billion, but it's more stimulative than not spending it, or than raising taxes. And it won't be alone.

The deal isn't done, but right now, Democrats look likely to get a 13-month extension of both unemployment insurance and many of the tax breaks built into the stimulus (Making Work Pay, the bump in the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, the business tax breaks and so on). That totals about $180 billion over two years. So if the White House gets the deal that the early reports suggest are close -- and that they seem to think they'll be able to get -- this is a two-year stimulus package that approaches $300 billion.

In other words, rather than paring the tax cuts and the deficit back, they're making both larger. If you're of the mind that the economy needs all the extra help it can get right now -- and you should be -- this is a lot more extra help than anyone expected Republicans and Democrats would agree to give it. And from a political perspective, if you believe that what matters for elections is the economy -- and you should -- then it's worth it for the White House to lose news cycles in 2010 if it means adding jobs by 2012.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/12/can_the_white_house_win_in_201.html

[allmylove]

1. Brilliant, hope for tax cuts for the rich to revive the economy

Raygun would be proud.

[Clio the Leo]

7. legislative gridlock isn't overly stimulative either. nt

[allmylove]

9. 14. Extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich will mean tacitly admitting Reagan was right.

This poster has it right--

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=544703&mesg_id=545021

Democrats will be as much as saying that they've been wrong about the tax issue all these years and have just been punishing the rich, even at the expense of hurting the overall economy. And since the Democratic position on the economy depends on taxes, ceding the tax issue will mean largely surrendering on economics. Democrats will be left to fight it out on hot-button social issues, and to hope that Republicans will save them by nominating the likes of Sharron Angle and Ken Buck. That's an unenviable position.

It's also radically unlikely that a two-, three-, or even five-year extension of the top bracket tax cuts will be allowed to expire when the time comes. Republicans' numbers in the Senate are only going to increase in 2012 and 2014, 2006 and 2008 having been big Democratic years. Why believe Democrats will accomplish from a weaker position in the future, what they can't from a stronger position now? Plus, they would be left to argue incoherently that tax cuts for the rich were good then, but are bad now. That, or say openly that they cut taxes for the rich simply out of weakness, even though they knew it was wrong. No, Democrats are in a world of hurt if they cave on taxes.

Rec +1 for a discussion worth having, though I strongly disagree with the view expressed.

[pscot]

15. He did that during the campaign

We should have listened then.

[polichick]

2. Only the unemployment payments would be stimulative. nt

[Dawgs]

3. "...and that they seem to think they'll be able to get (the deal)"

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[jaxx]

4. K&R That makes 2 journalists who have now seen the light.

People are realizing this is not a bad thing.

[Safetykitten]

5. As if he has a chance of being elected again at this point.

[Clio the Leo]

10. He's been informed that he's lost your vote. He's taking it rather hard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZJex9Ge2-Q&feature=related

[Safetykitten]

12. If you are going to stalk me, maybe we should become more aquainted...

[ShadowLiberal]

17. It's too early to say that 2 years out from an election

Remember when Bush Sr. looked invincible a year before the presidential election of 1992, with approval numbers in the 70's, only for everything to completely collapse around him within the next year.

And remember average senate rankings for the 2010 elections? It took many months for the pundits to start to list more potential republican pickups in the top 10 most at risk seats then potential democratic pickups.

[MadHound]

6. Tax cuts, tax credits are the worst form of economic stimuli going

That's basic economics. If the Obama administration was truly worried about stimulating the economy, he would do the most effective form of economic stimuli, create a true, WPA style jobs creation program.

But instead he is choosing to do the same thing again and again, cut taxes, and again, expects a different outcome every time. This is considered by some to be insanity.

[Hippo_Tron]

13. The new Republican congress would never approve that

They won't approve any government spending that might stimulate the economy. The point of the article is that either the tax cuts will go to paying down the debt which has no stimulative effect or tax cuts for the rich which have minimal stimulative effect and those are the President's choices at this point.

[MadHound]

16. And Nixon wouldn't have gone to China, Bush I would never raise taxes, etc.

At least make the effort, if for no other reason than you get to beat the 'Pugs bloody over the issue.

[craigmatic]

8. That article presupposes that tax cuts are good for the economy. Threy aren't and this'll

make the income gap bigger and the economy will suffer for the tax cuts long term.

[ieoeja]

11. No, it will NOT pump $100 billion into the economy.

It will extract $100 billion from the economy into the hands of investors who, faced with the inevitable tax increase when the house of card come down, will pocket as much of that money as they can get their hands on while taxes are low.

If we raised taxes right now, then you would see that $100 billion flowing back into the economy as reinvestment. But so long as the tax holiday holds, only an absolute fool would wait to take their profit at a latter date when it will be have to be taxed at a higher rate.

[Hippo_Tron]

14. The Republicans won't allow that $100 billion to be spent